Booking travel services online saves you time that could be better spent indulging your wanderlust. But with so many sites out there, where do you start? This quick reference guide directs you to the best places to find each type of transport in Britain and abroad.

Train
The main UK booking site for train travel is thetrainline.com. Generally it's not bad for arranging tickets if you know where and when you want to go. It can be a little tricky, however, if you want to incorporate flexibility into your journey. On the positive side, it lets you search either for the fastest or cheapest tickets, and is programmed for most fares and trains in the UK. You can also store your favourite journeys to save time when searching again. In a test run, tickets were dispatched quickly and with no problems.

Virgin appears to be powered by a similar search and booking engine, but, on the net as on the rails, their reliability is somewhat lacking. As such, booking tickets online can turn into a trial and be painfully slow, leaving you reaching for the customer service number.

Coach
gobycoach.com is a simple and effective site, with clear and concise instructions for users to help them find fares and schedules for trips around the UK and Europe. Indeed, despite the seemingly basic design, it actually boasts more user-friendly features than you'd find on many airline sites. For example, if a particular route isn't available on the date requested, it displays a calendar showing when the journey would be possible. And it's also very clear on how and when tickets will be dispatched or how to collect them. (Gwyn Topham)

Ferry
The Ferrysavers.com site allows the user to get an overall view of all the leading ferry routes from the UK, so you don't end up having to surf around endlessly to see what other options are available. During my first time accessing the site it felt a bit clumsy but, on ringing the hotline, a friendly voice told me there may be difficulties when using Netscape Communicator. I switched to Internet Explorer and the Ferrysaver site proved itself very user-friendly.

Its strong point is flexibility: with information on more than 30 routes from Britain to Eire and the Continent, Ferrysavers invites you to specify travel times, dates and the number of passenger and then searches for the most compatible crossing time and price. Although the service does not offer special offers, prices are competitive - £79 for a car and five passengers travelling to France. After providing your credit card details, you are given a booking number to present to the staff at the relevant ferry company. The site also offers a selection of en route accommodation from a choice of 1,500 locations across Europe.

Overall, I found it easy to use, fast and simple to navigate. And, if you do have problems, the back-up telephone number puts you through to an experienced travel consultant. (Carla Grossetti)

Flights
All the high-profile no-frills carriers, namely Go, easyJet, Ryanair.com and Buzz are designed with online booking in mind. Indeed, some even offer nominal discounts for online transactions. However, finding the headline fares is a different matter. Despite regular adverts for amazing cheap deals, fulfilling the myriad of qualifying conditions seems to be, by and large, a matter of pot luck. Most of these carriers are now offering an email mailing list with new deals so the best advice is to subscribe and play the game.

As an alternative, Flynow.com and Deckchair.com are good for finding budget flight deals. MyOwnPrice.com , meanwhile, invites the user to specify how much you are prepared to pay and then tries to match that price and STA Travel offers good deals to the student/youth market.

Of the garishly designed cheapflights.com and bargainflights.com, the latter seems the better bet (although its search system doesn't appear to work on Netscape browsers). (Carla Moore)

Car hire
The Holiday Autos site, with its clean design and uncomplicated booking process, is probably the market leader in this category. Check the weekenders and late deals sections of special offers for up-to-date offers and remember that online bookings are eligible for a £10 discount. Better still, the site offers a best price guarantee whereby, if you find a lower price, holiday autos will match it.

Other than, most of the major hire companies have deals via their respective sites. Of these, Europcar seems rather complicated with its numerous codes to complete the registration while , Hertz presents itself in a more user-friendly fashion. The latter also offers some decent package deals such as Le Swap ie. hire a car in Britain, take Le Shuttle to Calais and swap the vehicle for a left-hand-drive model to drive on the Continent.

Avis also sets out the booking process in a relatively straightforward fashion and has deals such as a £5 weekend upgrade and a free extra day on two day weekend rentals - subject to the ever-present set of conditions, of course. If it all seems a bit much, for a one-stop guide, check out Carhire4less.co.uk which acts as a consolidator site for Alamo, Budget, Hertz & Europcar with car rental rates discounted up to 30%, notably the USA, Canada, UK, Europe and Australia. (David Atkinson)

Comprehensive/holiday sites Out of the big three players, Expedia is still the best place to buy flights on the web, although it has occasional periods of chronic languor, when a request takes five minutes to fulfil. It also sometimes posts up the prices of reserved flights for reasons it says are beyond the company's control and budget airlines, which are never listed here, are often cheaper for European flights (although my most recent flights to Geneva and Venice proved less expensive on Expedia). Despite all that, two sections worth investigating - if your travel dates are flexible - are Fare Compare and Lowest Fare, which can be found on the left-hand side of the Flights page. As for the other services - car hire, chain hotels, Halifax insurance, business trips - they're competently executed, if a little unexciting. But it's the flights you're here for, and it's just a little unfortunate that Expedia is currently undermining its staid and sophisticated image with a bouncy new logo resembling a genetically modified blueberry. (Ros Taylor)

The equally well-established ebookers site is likewise best known for its flight deals, although it also provides package holidays, hotels, car hire and travel insurance. Navigation is easy to follow, and each step of the booking and confirmation process is explained clearly. In addition to comprehensive online information, the site provides customer service phone numbers, email contacts and bricks-and mortar addresses, making it a good starting point for online booking novices (one user even reported that ebookers came up with better deals when she rang them). Extras include SMS flight updates and a "fare alert" that lets you input the maximum you're willing to pay to your chosen destination, and then emails you when it finds a matching flight. There is a charge for delivery of tickets, however. But Londoners can save themselves the cost by collecting them in person from the central London office. (Laura Morgan)

Lastminute.com is undoubtedly the highest profile site of its genre but reports are mixed as to whether it is actually the best performer. The weekly themed newsletter lists a range of deals from flights to UK weekend breaks and day out ideas with some good prices to be had. However, it's probably best to shop around the various sites above rather than assuming Lastminute.com has the best offers on the web.

As with all the sites mentioned here, new and better deals are constantly coming online. So the best advice to take time to surf around a bit and compare prices before making a decision. A little research could go a long way.